"My editor got the joke before I did; he said: “Explain this chronology? I smell a rat.” And then I started poring over the essays again, trying to discover what was original Benjamin, reprinted Benjamin, copied Benjamin, imitated Benjamin. Where did this new “Benjamin” agree with the Benjamin I know and love and where do they differ? So much of the book reads like straight solid Benjamin! I can’t figure out if the whole book is a copy or if half of it is reprinted interviews that actually took place—and I’m not supposed to. Foucault wrote a famous essay on Nietzsche that is composed almost entirely of unsourced, rephrased quotations from Nietzsche himself; Benjamin himself first suggested that the ideal academic essay would be composed of nothing but quotations, without any commentary from the author whatsoever. I’m left, like an ancient skeptic, at an aporia: no way through. The best response is to laugh at myself. Now there’s a good old-fashioned anti-dogmatic moral lesson."

"Although Recent Writings isn’t what most readers might consider “accessible,” it’s worth remembering that its author’s namesake also had a penchant for circuitousness. Both The Arcades Project and Berlin Childhood Around 1900 eulogizethe serendipitous discoveries that happen when lost, straying, or flaneuring. As a schoolchild, Benjamin the first often doodled labyrinths onto his textbooks. One of his formative memories was of losing his way among the twisting streets of Berlin during a storm. Another was becoming aware of a precocious erection –what he called the “first stirring of his sexual urge”—during an afternoon walk in which he couldn’t find the place he was looking for and missed his appointment. Nobody would describe Recent Writings as boner-inducing, but it does thrust us into unfamiliarity."

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Dedicated to Artists’ books, multiples, recordings, postcards, magazines and ephemera, this site will feature reviews of recent titles, features on artists and publishers, random listings of older works, the occasional longer essay or interview, straight-forward pictorials,links to recent news, etc. etc., in an attempt to create an aggregate of information on editioned artworks.

About Me

Dave Dyment is an artist, writer and curator based in Toronto, Canada. He is the co-editor of "One for Me and One to Share: Artists Multiples and Editions" (YYZ Books, 2012). His own work can be viewed at www.dave-dyment.com. He is represented by MKG127.